Society of Fellows

newsspring 2009

Contents 2 From the Editor Exhibition of Architectural Drawings 3 AAR Bookfair 4 Interview with Mona Talbott 5 Words for David Childs 6 Interview with Carmela Vircillo Franklin 7 Interview with Yotam Haber 8 Jackie Saccoccio, David Humphrey 9 John Newman 10 Researching Rossini in Rome Interview with Paul Moravec 11 Letter from the SOF President 12 Campaign News —A Gift and a Challenge 13 Sketches from Rajasthan 14 Rome Fellows 2008–2009 15 Board of Trustees and SOF Council 2 Society of Fellows news spring 2009 3

From the Editor Exhibition of Architectural Drawings by Fellows, AAR Bookfair 1910–1935, at the American Academy in Rome James L. Bodnar, faar'80 1910–1935 Fikret K. Yegul, raar’98, Professor, History of Architecture/Classical Archaeology, Christiana Killian and University of California, Santa Barbara, and John Pinto, faar’75, raar’06, The Howard Daniel Curtis Crosby Butler Professor of Architectural History, Princeton University

The term Akademeia¯ originally referred to a he first exhibition of works by the Acad- their way to museums and public collections. The archaeological studies and drawings, which over the years, opposing the sensibilities and n 8 November 2007 the American Academy district outside the walls of ancient Athens, a Temy’s fellows in architecture took place at the Originals are generally very large (typically often required the help and collaboration of a the exciting new developments of its own time. Oin Rome held its first official Bookfair—or at “grove of olive trees, sacred to Athena and home American Fine Arts Galleries in New York in 4–6 feet long), and most are extremely high in fellow from the School of Classical Studies (the For young architects responding to the creative least the first one anyone can remember—to to a religious cult since the Bronze Age. It was 1896, only two years after the founding of the quality and unique in nature. Quite apart from two American institutions in Rome had merged artistic currents of the twentieth century, the celebrate the dedication of the Arthur and Janet a place of religious mysteries, and such was the Academy itself as the “American School of their historical and educational significance, in 1912), were considered fundamental for emergence of modern architecture among them, C. Ross Library. Fellows, residents, and trustees respect for the Groves of Academe in the early Architecture in Rome.” At that time fellowships they are visually and artistically engaging and understanding the essence of classicism. Occa- the restrictions imposed by the Academy, how- were asked to donate recent work for the history of Greece that the Spartans would not had not yet been regularized but depended on exciting. They represent a continuum and pro- sional attempts to study fine baroque examples ever well intended, became an anathema. Many library’s benefit. The response was astounding: ravage it when they invaded Attica, according the ability of one of the Academy’s founders or cess—unbroken over nearly four decades—of such as Borromini’s churches—buildings that of the young architects found their emerging almost 100 artists and scholars contributed an to Plutarch’s Life of Theseus (xxxii). It was in a member of its small group of friends (usu- American thinking about architecture. give most of us goose bumps of excitement beliefs in “originality” in art and architecture amazing number and variety of texts. There this sacred grove of olive trees that Plato began ally Charles F. McKim or Daniel Burnham) to now—were strongly discouraged because the pitted against the common misrepresentation were books on architecture, gardens, works One hundred and thirteen years after the first to converse with his followers and pupils, and it offer a cash grant. The Academy also provided Academy's architectural leadership considered of the core beliefs of the Academy’s founders, of art, war, classical drama, photographs, Academy exhibition in New York, and 70 years was thus that the Athenians took the place name shelter, workspace, and guidance to young baroque or mannerist art to be in bad taste. admiration for the perfected model, as expressed mountains, museums, hills, and nudes; there after the last (that I know of), John Pinto, Akademeia¯ and applied it to a group of thinkers American architects who had found funding by Senator McMillan: “In architecture, the work were sketchbooks, books of fairy tales, books faar’75, raar’06, and Fikret Yegul, raar’98 The Collaborative Project, perceived as “cre- working together, and even sharing a philo- from outside sources. The first exhibition is of the individual is confined mainly to adapting of poetry, children’s books, and guide books; have selected 50 photographs, representing ative,” was an annual four-week competition sophical outlook.” reported to have been successful. In the words to the conditions of his particular problem investigations of Mussolini, Napoleon, and the works of some 20 fellows between ca. 1910 among teams composed of an architect, a of Senator James McMillan (a staunch sup- forms that have already been perfected. His Pinocchio; studies of Naples, Venice, Malta, Carmela Vircillo Franklin, and 1935; these are to be shown in the Confer- landscape architect, a sculptor, and a painter, porter who helped the Academy incorporate as originality is displayed in the selection of a suit- Caracas, the alleys of Galveston, the streets of faar ’85, raar’02 ence Room of the Academy's historic New invoking the Renaissance ideal of the collabora- Arthur and Janet C. Ross Rome Prize a national institution by an act of Congress on 3 able style of architecture and in the adjustment Los Angeles, and, of course, many books about York office (also a McKim building).2 About tion of “the Arts.” This notion of the alliance of Ceremony, 16 April 2009 March 1905), it “attracted public attention to the of its forms to the uses to which the particular Rome. But the Bookfair wasn’t limited to books. two-thirds of these drawings are historical or the arts, with its conceptualization of architec- high quality of the work done by the students of building is to be put.”3 While archaeological There were catalogues of exhibitions, CDs of fel- Carmela Franklin’s observation that “Academy” archaeological, and one-third are examples from ture in a larger artistic context, is as engaging the Academy, and proved beyond question the documentation was tolerated, even enjoyed, the lows’ compositions, and DVDs of operas, films, originally referred to a singular and distinc- the Collaborative Project. The photographs and valid now as it was then. But by restricting desirability of supporting such a school.”1 We Collaborative Project became extremely contro- and fellows’ choreography. tive place rings true to anyone who has been were enlarged from the glass-plate negatives this alliance solely along the lines of classical and do not know what was on exhibit, but we can versial and caused considerable friction between to the American Academy in Rome, especially and mounted on aluminum plates. The origin Renaissance examples, the Academy found itself, Many of the authors graciously sent signed imagine that there were fine drawings by John the fellows and their supervisors, as well as in recent years. We see today the fruits of copies or came to the Bookfair to personalize unhappiness among the trustees. It was discon- the efforts by many to restore and make new them. Fellows and residents arrived from all tinued after the Second World War, when the the buildings and grounds of the entire AAR over the Americas; one scholar traveled all the Academy began to be a place where a fellow was campus. From the Villa Aurelia and the McKim way from Poland. One of the best unintended free to choose her or his inspiration from any Building to the Bass Garden and the Arthur consequences of the fair was the opportunity for period in history or none at all. Louis Kahn, a and Janet C. Ross Library, and even in the main fellows and residents to meet each other. Some visiting fellow in 1951, Robert Venturi, and many AAR kitchen, much has been achieved through reconnected with old friends they had not seen of the other creative names in architecture made the dedicated leadership of the trustees and staff since Rome; others met authors whom they had their peace with history through the Academy of the AAR. long known only through their work. and Rome. That is the Academy we inherited. This issue of the SOF News highlights other cur- Because all the books had been donated, and This modest photographic exhibition, historical rent successes, as well. We announce the first because of tremendous support from the and documentary in nature, is a homage to the release of a boxed set of recordings by fellows in Friends of the Library, many of whom con- fellows who produced these drawings, some- music and present the reflections of two fellows tributed more than the minimum suggested times with a lot of complaining and grumbling on what they achieved during their year at the donation, the event raised more than $10,000. but also, not infrequently, with open enthu- AAR. We will hear again from Carmela about There have already been more than a few siasm and excitement. It aims to illustrate a slice changes in community and family life, from requests to hold another Bookfair. Given the of the Academy's rich past and remind us—as Mona Talbott on the most recent developments success of the first one, it is likely to become a John Pinto and I believe—that a beautiful in the Rome Sustainable Food Program, and regular event. architectural drawing, even in a photographic from Corey Brennan, the president of the SOF, reproduction, is a joy to look at. Though the Bookfair is over, it is still possible to on the “Academy miracle.” We also will hear of make a significant contribution by purchasing fellows generously giving back to the AAR: in 1. J. McMillan, “The American Academy in Rome,” North American Review 174 (May 1902), 627. the work of fellows and residents. Fellows’ one case a gift from two fellows in architecture work is always available through the Society of who formed a partnership after Rome, and in 2. We would like to extend our thanks to Adele Chatfield- Taylor, the president of the AAR, Elizabeth Kogen, and all Fellows website (http://www.sof-aarome.org/ the other contributions to the Bookfair from the staff and personnel of the Academy’s New York office, for sof_publications_other.html). Buying books close to a hundred fellows and residents. supporting this exhibition. Above: and CDs through this link enables the SOF to It is difficult to imagine that our modern-day A Monument to Mechanical of this exhibition goes back to the 1980s when, 3. McMillan, “Academy,” 627. This notion of finding a collect a referral fee from Amazon.com. This Russell Pope (perhaps his superb watercolor of “suitable style” in architecture and imitating the historically Academy would ever see a threat like the one Progress in an Exhibition, with the support of the Academy, Yegul worked fee comes out of Amazon’s profit, with no cost elevation. Cecil C. Briggs, the Orvieto Cathedral or his measured pencil perfected models in that style was quite common in early the Spartans posed in ancient Attica, but these on a small selection of this material that was twentieth-century American architecture, which was slow to the author. Purchasing books and CDs from architect; Charles R. Sutton, details of the Erechtheion in Athens, now in the are difficult times. Nothing seems to be outside landscape architect; Sidney intended for display in Rome. The show was to accept the exported European modernism, as expressed this website raises money for future SOF pro- National Gallery of Art), who became the first through the works of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. the reach of the current economic crisis, or the B. Waugh, sculptor; Dunbar to be didactic and modest—a “house show,” grams without taking royalties from fellows or fellow of the AAR in 1895. latest virus. Fortunately, we can look back at the D. Beck, painter, 1930. as Sophie Consagra, then the director of the residents. Most of the works sold at the Bookfair great accomplishments that bring us here today, Above right: In the four decades between 1897 and the begin- Academy, called it. That exhibition never are available, as well as many others, and buying and look forward as well. Thanks to the strong Frigidarium of the Hadri- ning of the Second World War in 1939, some 31 happened. Yet considerable research was under- them through this link is a good way to con- anic Baths at Lepcis Magna. leadership and generous support from the AAR Restored perspective. Cecil C. fellows in architecture and about half as many taken into the origins, subjects, and nature of tribute painlessly to the Society of Fellows. community, so vital at this time, we will con- Briggs, 1929–31. in landscape architecture produced several the drawings and how they fitted into the Acad- tinue to maintain and grow the Academy we hundred drawings as a part of their fellowship emy's larger educational and artistic mission. Below right: know and love. Temple of Castor and Pollux, requirement. This “prescribed work” included This enjoyable research, much enlarged and Forum Romanum, Rome. both creative design and archaeological inves- expanded, became the subject of Yegul’s book Restored façade. Ernest F. tigations in the form of measured drawings, Gentlemen of Instinct and Breeding: Architecture Lewis, 1908-10 restoration studies, and full-scale architectural at the American Academy in Rome, 1894–1940 details. Taken together, these works make up the (Oxford University Press, 1991). largest and most cohesive body of architectural Academy fellows then, as now, were encouraged output of its kind produced by American archi- to travel widely in Italy, Sicily, and sometimes tects. It is comparable in quality and diversity as far afield as Greece. The purpose was to with the best works of the French Prix de Rome foster a first-hand, sympathetic understanding winners of the École des Beaux-Arts—a vener- of the classical tradition in architecture, which able institution that the Academy always tried to AAR Bookfair, 8 November was considered to represent the best artistic emulate. 2007, New York. Joshua and architectural taste. As was the practice at Weiner, faar’04, signing his Unfortunately, the Academy retained none all academies, the primary requirement for the book, with Richard Olcott, of the original drawings, which remained the fellows was to study the approved examples of faar’04 property of the fellows. During the decades classicism, mainly buildings from the Greco- leading up to the Second World War, some of Roman period and Italian Renaissance, and to these drawings were exhibited in New York, produce measured drawings, sketches, restora- typically in the Fine Arts Galleries or the Archi- tion studies, and full-size architectural details. tectural League, sometimes at the Century Club The fellowships were for three years, allowing (to which McKim and all Academy leaders ample time for travel and work. During the belonged). Luckily for us, all works produced by third year the fellows were required to complete the fellows until 1939 were photographed on 8" x fully rendered watercolor studies showing an 10" glass plates and kept at the Academy Library ancient building (or group of buildings) in the (they have since been given as archival material existing state as well as restored. A small group to the Fototeca). A small number of original of these were published over the years in the drawings and watercolors were kept by fel- Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. lows' families and business associates or found 4 Society of Fellows news spring 2009 5

Interview With Mona Talbott, Words for David Childs Executive Chef Conducted by James L. Bodnar, Michael C. J. Putnam 14 January 2009 faar’64, raar’70, Trustee

ames Bodnar: Since we had our last discussion employee. She heard that we were doing good JB: How are the menus developing? n the occasion of the retirement of David M. as durability; utilitas—“usefulness” would be about the Rome Sustainable Food Project, what work, and offered to train Mirella Misenti, our Childs, raar’04, at the end of his term as the our closest English equivalent; and venustas, J MT: It’s interesting, the first year we were a little bit O new developments have occurred? pastry cook, helping her improve her techniques, homesick for more ethnic diversity, but less so now. chair of the AAR Board of Trustees, a dinner was meaning “attractiveness” or “charm.” I lack teaching her about cakes (English and American Mona Talbott: We’ve grown a lot in the past year. I feel the food has continued to improve and we held by Mercedes and Sid Bass in his honor at the credentials to speak intelligently to David’s cake is very different from Italian-style cake The kitchen was renovated last summer, which better understand Italian ingredients and cuisine. the Union Club in New York City on December architectural achievements, but I do know making), and also showing her how to standardize has made an incredible difference to us—to have We’re more interested now in cooking a Mediterra- 12, 2008. The following tribute was given at the something of his excellence as a man. It strikes the recipes for large quantities. That’s been a great equipment that’s fully functioning and that can nean based cuisine, not only Italian, but food of the dinner by Michael C.J. Putnam. me that our Roman author’s threefold formu- experience. accommodate the volume of cooking we do. It has entire Mediterranean region. Every now and then lation to help us characterize distinguished First, on behalf of Ken and myself, I want to lightened the load. We have four full-time interns We also have a cook from Chez Panisse, Rayneil for the Friday dinner, or at Saturday lunches, we architecture is fully applicable to architect thank Mercedes and Sid for so glorious an eve- now, which is a wonderful aspect of the project, De Guzman, and it looks like we will always have like to cook American comfort food: fried chicken, David’s own personal relationship to life around ning. It is such a truly splendid gesture to gather and has helped us develop the RSFP, and it has one cook rotating through the kitchen from Chez chicken pot pie or meat loaf, and we have found him and, for us here present, this means to the added an element of teaching which is rewarding. Panisse. Juliette Deventhal, who was the chef at that the AAR community enjoys it, and we like it us together for a family celebration. And what a American Academy in Rome. We love to share the RSFP and the AAR with young Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin County, too. celebration it is: to rejoice in the career of David people who are starting their careers in food. California, is in the kitchen as well. A couple of new things we’ve started this year. We Childs, and to thank him and Annie for all that For more than twenty years now he has had the JB: Where are they from? offer a grocery program to new visitors, and also they have done for his and for our world. We best interests of our beloved institution at heart, to the entire AAR community. We have beautiful pride ourselves in thinking that the American most recently during his fruitful incumbency as MT: It varies a lot. We have students from the ingredients that we have sourced locally and we Academy in Rome has been a special part of his chairman of the Academy’s Board of Trustees. Culinary Institute of America, who come for five made this available to the community—things career. months on student visas. It’s very diverse, and we For all of his tenure as an officer, and especially like butter, milk, yogurt and cheese, and breakfast find it’s more interesting to have interns who are during his last stretch of duty, he has exempli- items that people may want to prepare for them- I first met David in 1989 when I was newly passionate about food, but not necessarily people fied the perfect combination of firmitas, utilitas, selves. Also, we make jam using fruit from the Bass arrived as Mellon Professor at the Academy. who want to become professional chefs. Right and venustas. An embodiment of firmitas, he Garden. We sold all the apricot and plum jam we He had been appointed a trustee in 1987 but now we have Ashley Morford, who is from the CIA. has been steady in his loyalty and strong in his made last summer, and sell a lot of granola now, already, during his visits to Rome, I sensed in She’s going to be finishing up in early February. about 10 kilos a week, which is phenomenal for us, him a soundness of judgment that understood commitment. As for utilitas, he has been skilled We also have a former fellow from last year, Yotam and we hope to expand that even more. and proficient in the way that he discharged his Haber, who loves to cook. He voluntered a lot in the not just architecture, the art that he professes, many responsibilities. And to everything that he Adele Chatfield-Taylor, faar’84, and David M. Childs, kitchen and told us that he wanted to come back JB: What additions and changes might we expect in and the other fine arts that make up such an touches he brings venustas, grace and elegance raar’04, in the cortile of the AAR on 30 September 2007. and cook. He’s here right now. the next year? important aspect of the Academy’s personality, Photo: James Bodnar but also the scholarly side that forms an equally born of wisdom. We just had a very good pastry chef from London, One topic we talked about last time was MT: For the future, we would love to renovate the JB: crucial ingredient in its essence. I felt that here Claire Patak, who’s a former Chez Panisse sourcing here in Italy. Can you touch on that and bar and to diversify and expand what we sell— David: thank you from us all. We admire you how that has developed? have some interesting Italian artisanal beers for was someone whose breadth of interest, humor enormously, far more than these few words, sale at the bar, and have a showcase for foodstuffs and humanity would allow me to turn to him however heartfelt, can say. To paraphrase my MT: We’ve increased the number of people that we we make in house. We make beautiful little candy for advice without much ado, and I did just beloved Virgil, Macte tua virtute…sic itur ad buy from. We continue to look in this region. We’ve peel with oranges from the garden, and tisane. At that. And have done so ever since. stuck with the ones who have been reliable and astra, which we could translate as: “Flourish in Christmas, we realized that people wanted to buy have provided us with good ingredients, but we’ve Vitruvius, the respected Augustan historian your excellence. This is the route to the stars.” gifts from the RSFP to take back to their family increased and diversified. I think we have around and friends. So that’s something that we want to and teacher of architecture, writes that there 40 different vendors right now. develop, and also to continue to integrate fully into are three qualities necessary to assure a build- JB: How is the garden? the AAR. ing’s greatness: firmitas, which we might define MT: The garden! We’ve had a really exciting devel- One thing I’ve noticed this year is that finally, after opment. This September, we had an intern from all the effort and time many people committed to Martha’s Vineyard, Chris Fischer, who is a cook and the RSFP, we are a permanent part of the staff here a third-generation vegetable farmer. One of his at the Academy. It’s much more comfortable now other jobs on the island was putting in vegetable for us, so that’s a great development and we really Publications, Exhibitions, Awards, Remembrance gardens for summer residents. We have been appreciate everything that everyone has done to working closely with Alessandra Vinciguerra to let make the RSFP happen. 1950s of art tries to tell us—that we must people in a particular surrounding, she will show how these overlaps us manage the vegetable garden, and we’ve been change our lives.” and I feel that a chance to study the and strategies of compositional JB: And you’re enjoying it? at it since September. We’ve been able to transform Jack Beeson, faar’50, raar’66, —Lukas Foss on his piece Quintet art of Europe while producing work structure have inspired her own the beds, growing more vegetables and different MT: We love it more all the time. in his recent book How Operas Are for Orchestra: The Rocks on the of my own would be of enormous architectural work. Created by Composers and Librettists: Mountains Begin to Shout, com- value to me in preparing to help fur- varieties of salad greens and herbs. That’s been a Susan Wood, faar’78, made a posed at the AAR in 1978 ther the cause of a meaningful and wonderful thing. Now we’ve integrated gardening The Life of Jack Beeson, American foray into post-Classical art history Composer (Edwin Mellen Press), has living sculpture in America.” into our internship program so that every Friday James Ackerman, faar’52, during her sabbatical last term. one of our interns spends the whole day in the much to say about the AAR and his —Lawrence S. Fane on the beauty Her study of 18th-century French raar’65, ’70, ’75, ’80, was awarded of Italy, from his Rome Prize appli- garden. Many fellows have joined them, which is time there in 1948–50, 1958–59, and painting, “Caracalla and the French 1965–66. honorary citizenship of Padua in cation, 1959 really wonderful. celebration of the 500th anniversary 1970s Revolution: A Roman Tyrant in the Lukas Foss, faar’52, raar’78, com- of the birth there of Palladio. He also 18th Century Iconography,” will JB: And how are the fellows this year? had a poser. received the Leone d’Oro prize of the John Leavey, faar’70, appear in maar. one-person exhibition of his land- MT: Great year, really fun, and seem to love the Biennale of Architecture at Venice Born 15 August 1922, died 1 February scape paintings at the Bennington Eugene F. Rice, raar’78, historian. food. When I reviewed the article in the winter’08 in 2008. 2009. He was 86 years old. issue of the SOF News, I realized that we started Museum, Bennington, VT, in 2007. Born 20 August 1924, died 4 August Thomas H. Dahill, Jr., faar’57, He also participated in group exhi- the year last year without a real introduction. This “A five-note chord dominates the 2008. He was 83 years old. had a one-man exhibition of recent bitions at the Butler Institute of year, the first Friday we had a nice introduction to composition. It is endlessly repeated, paintings and drawings at the American Art in Youngstown, OH; “We would call special attention to the RSFP, and opened up the floor for questions. varied, permutated, transposed and Gene’s Saint Jerome in the Renais- inverted. It invades the entire piece Newton Free Library, Newton, MA, in the Blue Mountain Gallery in New We met with different groups of people separately. August 2008. York; and the Beckwith Gallery in sance of 1985, where his graceful I’ve also asked the fellows to volunteer and help us via persistent, pulsating, echoing and prose, great learning, and linguistic crisscrossing quarter notes. Toward Jamaica, VT. with shelling nuts or peas or beans. They’ve been 1960s range combined with a sensitivity happy to oblige. Lawrence Fane in his Vermont studio, Thomas Walsh, faar’74, has to religious issues and an artistic 1998. Aldo Casanova, faar’61, raar’75, installed a 10’ wide by 13’ tall wall sensibility to produce a work of wide piece at a bank in downtown San had recent exhibitions at the Sul- Dean Adams Johnson, faar’66, cultural and intellectual appeal.” Jose. The piece comprises 27 indi- livan Goss gallery in Santa Barbara, was honored with the Distinguished —from the 2008 “In Memoriam” vidual cast bronze parts. Above: the Los Angeles Art Show, the 184th Alumnus Award for 2009 by the by the Renaissance Society of Gabriel Soare, barista per America Annual Exhibition of Contempo- Department of Landscape Architec- eccellenza, AAR bar. Sharon Yates, faar’74, had a two- Photo: James Bodnar rary American Art at the National ture at Michigan State University, person show this spring at the June Academy Museum in New York, where he earned an undergraduate Fitzpatrick Gallery in Portland, ME. Above right: and the National Sculpture Society, degree in 1961. She is also participating in the 184th Blackboard menu, AAR bar. among others. Annual Exhibition of Contempo- Photo: James Bodnar. Morris Moshe Cotel, faar’68, pia- Lukas Foss in his Casa Rustica studio at rary American Art at the National the AAR, ca. 1951. Charles Witke, faar’62, raar’98, nist and composer. Right: continues to review books and Academy Museum in New York and The kitchen staff cuts up, Image courtesy of the AAR Archives write articles in the field of late Born 20 February 1943, died 24 a group show at Northeast Fine Art fall 2008. October 2008. He was 65 years old. and Design in Northeast Harbor, ME. Photo: Joel Katz the end there is an explosion which antique literature and studies. He liberates us from the domination observed the 20th anniversary of his “My religion changed from Judaism Judith Di Maio, faar’78, traveled of the five note chord. All this can priesthood in the Episcopal Church to classical music, and in adulthood throughout Libya during the spring be explained and analysed. But serving St. Andrew’s in Ann Arbor, it changed back again.” of 2008, touring ancient Greek and I cannot explain why this chord, MI. —Morris Moshe Cotel in a 2008 Roman sites as well as studying the Eugene Rice’s Saint Jerome in the which dominates through repetition, interview with Jewish Week. Rabbi Italian Fascist architecture in Tripoli. Lawrence S. Fane, faar’63, Renaissance, 1988. Research for this variation, permutation, transposi- Cotel was ordained in 2003 and She spent June in Aswan, Egypt. This tion and inversion of persistent, sculptor. was the spiritual leader of Temple book was done while Rice was a resident January she was named the first at the AAR. pulsating, echoing and crisscrossing Born 10 September 1933, died 28 Beth El of Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn, New York Colin Rowe Designer in Residence lingers like a wound until ‘the rocks November 2008. He was 75 years at the AAR. Judy will be returning to Caren Canier, faar’79, had an exhi- begin to shout’. Nor do I know what Next column, top: Spring Concert at the old. Villa Aurelia, 26 April 1968. Morris Cotel Rome in May to complete her resi- bition of recent work at the Mark it is that rocks shout—perhaps appears at the center of the photo. dency, which will include a lecture Potter Gallery at the Taft School in Charles Ives does. Perhaps rocks cry “I was particularly thrilled by the Image courtesy of the AAR Archives entitled “Perception and Inspiration: Watertown, CT, in 2008. ‘help’ because we do not see we are intimate relationship between the sculpture, the architecture, the land, Overlaps in 16th Century Italian in danger; or perhaps they merely Architecture and Painting,” in which [Continued on page 8] shout a reminder of what every work and the people. I believe strongly that sculpture should function for 6 Society of Fellows news spring 2009 7

Interview with Carmela Vircillo Interview with Yotam Haber, Franklin, faar’85, raar’02 faar’08, Composer Conducted by James L. Bodnar, on behalf of Conducted by Martin Brody, faar’02, on behalf the Society of Fellows on 15 January 2009 at of the Society of Fellows on 15 January 2009 at the American Academy in Rome the American Academy in Rome

armela Vircillo Franklin: Once you have a residential not only the families of the fellows, but also the who is married to Lester Little, and whose profes- meal, comfort food. It’s baked lasagna, or fried artin Brody: To begin, could you say a word about the YH: “Death will come and she shall have your eyes” Cprogram, you have by definition a question about families of the residents. sional specialty is early childhood education, and chicken with mashed potatoes, that sort of thing. Mresearch you did for the piece that you wrote here at comes from the title of a poem by Cesare Pavese. the definition of community. How you define the who did so much to broaden the experience of the On Friday night we have a paper tablecloth, not a the Academy? It’s unusual for a composer to do that Pavese is an Italian poet who happened to be the I also want to say that increasingly we’ve asked community and what you do for the community families with children here. cloth tablecloth, and on each table the kitchen staff much ethnomusicological and historical investiga- favorite poet of the ethnomusicologist Leo Levi. I the fellows themselves to make the decision about becomes a central issue. Judy DiMaio (who is now (their idea) places magic markers, so that not only tion in the compositional process. went to Israel to meet Levi’s daughter, who was the degree of inclusion of children in various JB: Was it at that time that they started to use the one of our residents in architecture) told me that she the children can draw, but anybody else. We have very helpful and encouraging. She showed me a lot activities—not only at the meals, but also in some Triangle Garden for children’s parties? Yotam Haber: Let’s stress that I’m not a musicologist. was the first woman to live on the fourth floor of the great art being made on our tables. So, working of documents that are not available elsewhere. programs of the Academy. For example, if we take I’m not an ethnomusicologist. My starting point was McKim Building, an all-male floor, once women had CVF: It actually was used for such purposes even together, the various areas of the Academy—the a trip somewhere or have a visit to a particular this very fantastical idea, one that really no musicolo- The obvious texts to set for were the liturgical texts been admitted to just about equal rights. She was before. I remember when I was a fellow, Corinna Programs Department really help the fellows decide site, are children of a certain age (let’s say teenage gist or historian could ever prove, that the liturgical of these transcribed tunes that were being sung by questioned by Walter Cini because she was using the had a sixth-year birthday there. That was in 1985. what is appropriate for a child and what is not, Pina children, or infants) allowed? This year for the first music of the Roman Jewish community sounds like cantors. On top of that, I wished to use poems by bathroom at the end of the hall, which was reserved in Operations, the kitchen—I think we have made it time I’ve asked the fellows to elect representatives JB: Are there other apartments for families? music that was sung during the time of the destruc- Italians that had something to do with loss, with for men. She said, “But I live on the fourth floor!” as family-friendly, as community-based, as possible, who collectively represent the single fellows, the tion of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (70 ad). Jews community. I wasn’t sure what I was searching for, And then she went down to the third floor to take CVF: Yes, the Chiaraviglio, to which the Children’s while yet making it very clear that this is a place a bath, and the women got mad at her because she artists, the scholars, and the fellows with children. had already been in Rome at least 100 years before to tell you the truth. I just knew that when I would Garden is connected, and where we can also house where work is done. We are not allowing children was invading the third-floor bathroom and she was a If there is an issue, if a child is being too noisy, the that. find the right text, it would be the right text. It fellows or residents with children. It’s not as con- to live in this building. Children—who make noise fourth-floor person. complaints now go to the representatives so that would feel right. venient for children as 5B because it does not have because that’s natural to them and they should The fact that the Jews of Rome had been segre- the fellows resolve some of these issues and we an elevator, which is useful when you’re carrying a make noise—shouldn’t be in studios. Some places gated for so many centuries made me think that I asked Yaala Levi what was her father’s favorite This in a sense illustrates one issue of community. don’t have to be the policemen. You have a woman living on the fourth floor, but baby carriage and many groceries, as you would if are off limits. The library is off limits; the studios perhaps this segregation led to a kind of musical poem, and his favorite poem was “Verrà la morte e does she have full rights like the other inhabitants It’s basically an effort to treat the fellows as you have children. Also, in 5B the children become where the child might be noisy and disturb people isolationism, resulting in a community that really avrà i tuoi occhi,” which is a very dark poem. That of the fourth floor? When I was a fellow in ’84 and grownups, but more than that, as invested mem- friends and the parents share babysitting. We’ve nearby, off limits; concerts, etc. protected its oral tradition. Of course, it’s all pure poem recurs in almost every movement of my bers of this community. This is their community. It had a grant for families to be spent particularly on conjecture and nobody can prove it, which is why piece, which is scored for mezzo-soprano, string ’85, I lived on Via Guerrazzi, an apartment But we remain flexible. I will get an email from a is not our community in which they are guests. This fellows with families. For example, we’ve bought there hasn’t been a lot of scholarship on the sub- orchestra, digitized recordings of those old reel-to- below Piazza Rosolino Pilo, with my fellow asking permission to bring his 16-year-old is the community that they create, and they have to a television for 5B that can be moved from apart- ject. At a certain point, when you hit the birth of reels. mother in the fall semester to help to a concert “because …” and I say, “Of course.” We be participants in decision-making because I think ment to apartment. We’ve bought play equipment notation, you hit a dead-end. Before that, we can me take care of Corinna, my first are always happy to consider exceptions, but as a At times I use bitter texts about destruction, mostly that way they’ll own and they’ll embrace the rule, for soccer, ping pong, and all sorts of things like only guess at what was being sung. child, while my husband was parent I realize there is a time and place for chil- from the period in the Jewish calendar called Tisha if that is the appropriate word. Everything will go that. A person who has been key in developing our a visiting professor at the dren, and there is a time and place where children We know that before the Tempio Maggiore was B’Av, which is a day of mourning—mourning for more smoothly. facilities or thinking about facilities as having to be Harvard Divinity School. I are happier doing something else than being at built in 1903, we had five distinct synagogues at the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and child-friendly is Pina Pasquantonio. Pina has man- had to walk 20 minutes James Bodnar: The most significant change from grownups’ events. So we’ve done a lot of work, and least, five distinct Jewish communities, and each mourning for every great calamity that happened aged the grant in support of families, and she’s to come to the Academy, my perspective is the lease on what I call 5B. Could it’s because we want to make the Academy and all one had its own particular music. My initial thought to the Jews after the destruction of the Temple. furnished the kitchens of 5B in a way that is more and to carry our bed you just talk for a moment about that whole com- it has to offer as available to our fellows with chil- was that if the old-timers recorded in the 1940s had Some of these texts are from the Book of Jeremiah, suited to families with children. We’ve bought cribs linens as well, so that munity unto itself? dren as to everybody else. learned to sing prior to the destruction of these five which I find a rather bitter book. But sometimes and high chairs. We also have high chairs available they could be exchanged synagogues, they may have retained a coherent I just chose the text because the music that hap- CVF: 5B, absolutely. That building came into our in our McKim Building dining room. JB: A family-friendly institution. here. Roman music. Today, it is unclear whether what’s pened to be with those texts—the music that I operations the fall of 2001 when I was a resident. JB: That is great. You would never have seen one in CVF: Yes, a family thing, absolutely. Children also being sung in the Tempio Maggiore is Roman tradi- gleaned from these cantors—was just interesting, I remember that children The building, right next door to the Academy, my time. How will this continue to evolve, in terms have a wonderful way of linking our fellows to the tion, Italian tradition, Ashkenazic, Sephardic, etc. beautiful music that I felt superseded what was could not eat supper here, was a convent. We’ve leased a big part of it, and of assistance with education, or childcare? broader community of Rome through the school, So that’s why these recordings that I found were being sung. which meant that I felt a renovated it into several floors of apartments, one double obligation to be absent through the supermarket, through the play date, so important to me. In the 1960s, the Jews of Rome P CVF: Yes. We give a lot of help in figuring out chil- The first movement of the piece is called “Cum ho very big. We have a four-bedroom apartment, and to through the park or playground—and also I think became better integrated into Italian society. While : Jo from dinner because I wanted to dren’s schooling, but newly chosen fellows begin to el K indeed we have had occasions when we needed Nimis Absurdum,” which is the famous papal bull atz they have a way of knitting the Academy together. that is a wonderful thing, musically it became a big, eat not only with my daughter, but a four-bedroom apartment (as when one of our communicate immediately not only with the Rome from 1555 by Pope Paul IV creating the ghetto in The baby, the child who is here for a year, develops confusing jumble. also with my mother, who was making a big fellows had triplets—three preteen sons—with staff but particularly with fellows of the current Rome. It begins, and I paraphrase, “Since it is absurd relationships with the rest of the fellows on his or sacrifice leaving her own husband, my father, and her, in my first year as director). We also can use and past years to find out what the experience has At the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, I began that the Jews who killed our Lord live amongst us, her own. all her other commitments to be here with me and an apartment as big as that for the summer pro- been with the schools, and to consult on how to sifting through the archive set up by Leo Levi, an we should build a ghetto.” I set this as the first give me the opportunity to do my research. So I cer- grams, a place where we can put a larger number choose a school. JB: I also think that older fellows, more mature fel- Italian ethnomusicologist—an Italian version of movement: that text in Latin, sung to a melody that tainly did not have as rich an experience as a fellow of undergraduates or grad students, but that’s lows, are different from the younger fellows. Allan Lomax in America, who went around col- Roman Jews sang for Tisha B’Av. The pope has his JB: Corey Brennan is going through this right now as I would have had if I’d come now as a fellow another issue. And at the very top of that building, lecting, among other things, Appalachian folk way of being angry, and the Jewish liturgy is angry. as we speak. CVF: Yes. We also have to recognize that every- with a child and lived in one of the buildings on we have a large three-bedroom apartment with a music. Our man Levi went around Italy collecting It’s bitterness served two ways. Together, I thought body’s experience is different. We’re not all the the grounds of the Academy, on our campus, if you wonderful terrace, which serves at the moment as CVF: That’s what Corey’s doing right now. We also sounds, and happened to do a lot of Jewish litur- maybe something interesting could happen. same, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot have a wish—as we now make possible for fellows and the apartment of the Mellon Professor, who has a have lists of doctors. We establish relationships gical singing. In the 1940s and 1950s he started common core, a common life, which is the center of To describe the fourth movement, “Bereshit”— other residents with children here at the Academy. family. He has two daughters and needs the space. with doctors, with babysitters, with similar support making recordings of the old-time cantors who had the wheel, and then each one of us as a spoke has probably the most striking recording I came across That building has an elevator, two entrances, a services for families with children. The question of learned the Roman tradition, which is very different I can compare my experience as a fellow, pre-ren- another place. Some of our fellows go to the library was of a cantor singing the first few lines of the courtyard in which bicycles can be left, tricycles can daycare I think is a very good one. The difficulty is from the Sephardic, North African, or Ashkenazi ovation, before our long-term lease of 5B, and also every day, some go to the archives, some take Book of Genesis. For months I thought: how am I be ridden, and children can play hopscotch as they planning. One year we may have 17 children, and traditions. the renovation of the Chiaraviglio—I can compare photographs outside of Rome, and some work in going to use this melody or this recording? At the in fact do. That has become in a sense our families’ another year we’ll have three children. One year that experience with my experience in the fall of their studios 75 percent of their time, so we want to MB: And you found them all here in Rome. end, I just felt like there was nothing that I could apartment building. On the first floor, we also have we may have older kids. What I would really love 2001, when I came as a resident invited by Director accommodate everybody and everybody’s needs. do. I had to let it be. In this movement, we hear the a suite of offices, including the archaeology study to do is to have more financial support for families YH: Yes. They were all in the archives of Santa Lester Little. Then I had my second daughter, recording of this cantor, and the string orchestra collection, which has been beautifully renovated. with children. We already support the partners and Cecilia. Beatrice, with me. I was alone, without Bill or my simply assists him. They don’t get in the way; Giovanni Cimoroni, who is semiretired, lives on the the families of the fellows with children to a great mother. Beatrice, in eighth grade, was older than MB: And did you transcribe right away? What did instead, they sort of lift him. Corinna had been. We lived in the Chiaraviglio, right lower floor and continues to provide various sup- extent, but there is always the possibility of doing you do first? These were analogue audio tapes, I across from the gate of the Academy, and it com- port services for us and the building in particular. more. take it. By the way, Leo Levi translated Cesare Pavese’s poetry and published it in Israel for the first time, pletely changed my experience, not only because JB: And every apartment is self-contained with their Just to give you one example, there was a time YH: Some of them are digitized, but they literally so in some movements we hear his translation I just had to cross the street basically and I was own kitchen? when a fellow could give up some of his or her found 10 hours of reel-to-reels that had not been into Hebrew, and sometimes we hear the poem in here, but also because Beatrice was welcome to meals to his or her partner. Let’s say it’s a woman Absolutely self-contained, more than one digitized of Roman cantors with literally a quarter- Italian. The fifth and last movement is a Hallelujah dinner several nights a week. I think Tuesdays and CVF: fellow. She could give up at least three (I don’t bathroom generally, because they’re multi-bed- inch of dust on them. from Psalm 111, a psalm of thanksgiving. The Hal- Thursdays were the nights when we did not allow remember the details) dinners so that her husband room. They have a kitchen and several of them lelujah is really the moment of pure adulation, children then. Also, the nearness to the Academy or partner could eat at the Academy and they could I didn’t compose for months. I just transcribed, have an outdoor space, a balcony or a terrace as and I felt like the course of the whole piece travels meant that I could be with Beatrice when she got eat together. That to me made no sense. I thought, trying to get a feel of what this music is. It really well. Laundry facilities are in the building down- from bitterness to hope and tranquility. The work home from school, help her with her homework, why should the fellow have to give up some of sounds different from the Ashkenazi music that stairs, and an exit also in the back, leading right ends with the sound of the shofar sounding at the see what she needed, and then return to a lecture her fellowship so that she could keep the family you and I grew up with. It doesn’t sound like that, into the Bass Garden of the Academy. Also, we have Tempio Maggiore about 50 years ago. We hear the at six o’clock, or to the concert, because I knew that together at mealtimes? It seemed that what we and it doesn’t sound Sephardic either. Nor does it the Triangle Garden across from 5B and across from echoes of people singing and talking—if you’ve ever if she were in need of something urgent, all she should do is make it more possible for the partners have a strong Arab influence. It’s some hazy place the main gate of the Academy, which is now called been to this extraordinary synagogue, you’ll know had to do was walk down, go to the gatekeeper, or and then the children to eat at the Academy, not in the middle, which gave me hope that I really was the Children’s Garden. We have a little playground that the space has very strange acoustics. At the just phone, and I or the gatekeeper would help her. only by opening up the dining room more, making seeing through the cracks, that I really was seeing there, and that is where the children go and play. same time the orchestra has a turbulent whirring So it was a completely different experience. it more welcoming, but also by subsidizing the something that had preceded all of these northern They play soccer, for example, and they play bas- gesture. They’re moving very quickly, yet not going meals of the family members. That’s what we have influences and all that. I felt very integrated, and it made me realize how ketball. anywhere at the same time. I think the piece works done. Now increasingly we’ve received special sup- crucial the renovation of the physical plant, number MB: I’m struck by the phrase you just used about through a lot of frustration, history, bitterness, sad- JB: Is that dedicated to somebody? port so that the “fellow travelers,” as we call them, Yotam Haber, faar’08, one, had been in allowing fellows with children to seeing through the cracks. The piece Death Will ness, which is the history—at least my story—of and the children can eat at highly subsidized rates speaking with John Guare at be full partners in this experience; but also I think CVF: It has a gazebo dedicated to Lella Gandini, Come and She Shall Have Your Eyes achieves a great the Jews of Rome. so that the fellow can eat here as a member of a the Villa Aurelia at the Fel- that, connected with the change in the geography lows’ Annual Concert on 31 deal of its expressive power by exploring the gaps family or as a member of a couple. of the fellows’ lives, came a different attitude, May 2008. between things. The gap between recorded and To read the entire interview, visit www.sof-aarome. org. a different frame of mind. Some of our sister This decision rose out of our concern for the fellow Photo: Anna Muskardin instrumental sound is a case in point. Sometimes institutions here in Rome are recognizing what a travelers, but I also noticed my first year here the instruments seem to be listening to the his- big problem not having housing for fellows with that the fellows with children, of course, were torical music recorded on the tape part, and even children is. On two separate occasions, we’ve been not bringing their children because we ate dinner reflecting on it. Whether the taped music actually visited by the equivalent of trustees for the British too late, and children have to go to school in the represents what was being sung thousands of School. They frequently, I am told, cannot get the morning. We decided to at least make it possible years ago or not, it’s presented as something both best fellows they would like because some of them for families with children to have dinner at the AAR remote and very precious. have children whom they cannot leave behind or one day a week. So we moved the dinner hour to Some Rome Prize composers come here and simply are not willing to leave behind. You’re basically 7:00 PM, and in addition we do not charge the chil- write the next piece that they have in mind or leaving aside, excluding from the competition, a dren for Friday night dinner and Saturday lunch. the next piece that’s on their list of commissions. substantial number of very talented people, most Nothing wrong with that. But this was a very site- of whom, particularly in the old days, were women, JB: When is dinner typically served? specific piece that was important in particular for but now include fathers in equal number. I think CVF: Generally it’s at 8:00 pm, so on Fridays it’s at the Jewish community in Rome. Could you fill in a we would lose a great deal of talent if we did not Meriel Bizri (right, daughter of Michelle Mason and Hisham seven. The children have no school the next day so few details and tell us about the texts you chose to integrate families into the Academy. We integrate Bizri) and her elementary school friend Gaia Cecchini. they can stay up late. The kitchen prepares a family set and the overall plan of the piece? 8 Society of Fellows news spring 2009 9

Jackie Saccoccio, faar’05 John Newman, faar’04 David Humphrey, faar’09

Jackie Saccoccio, faar’05, mounted an exhi- n a recent interview John Newman, faar’04, was sculpture has been more or less based upon body or someone, but it also requires self-reflection. In the bition in Rome at RISD’s Beatrice Gallery in Iasked by Stephanie Buhmann of The Villager how he relationships—and truth to the materials, with an case of your work, it seems both viewer and object Palazzetto Cenci in November 2008. Entitled shifted his interest from large to a smaller scale in his emphasis on gravity and weight. But there is another are significant parts of the same discovery. recent sculpture, exhibited earlier this year at a solo branch of sculpture that has not been absorbed as “Wall Intervention,” the show consisted of JN: Yes, that’s what intimacy is; a discovery made show at the New York Studio School. much into the mainstream of history. It is based on large-scale gouache paintings set atop a wall together, because you are giving up something in the idea that certain objects are what I like to call Stephanie Buhmann: The works in this show are all exchange for something you gain. I could compare drawing that spans the gallery’s four walls. “scale-less”—more about your relationship with intimately scaled, a sentiment that was also reflected it to two dogs approaching one another; you don’t the object in the realm of the imagination, rather in some of your recent exhibition titles, such as know if you will be bitten or licked. There is danger, than fundamentally a physical rapport. This work “Homespun” and “Monkey Wrenches and Household anxiety, humor and joy all wrapped together. If your often uses bright color, light-weight materials and Saints.” How did you shift your interest from large to position is nose to nose, there is no peripheral vision. disparate constructed parts. Calder and Cornell are smaller scaled works? You are too close. In addition, your way of looking very different, but each demonstrates this idea quite becomes very feeling-full and, I hope, emotional— John Newman: It began when I was first teaching well. The globe of the world, for example, represents Left: not in a literal “this story made me cry” way, but in a Right: at Yale in the early 1990s. I was struck that all my Jackie Saccoccio: Grey Blue ribbon teardrop, 2008, way that only intimacy can bear. That is the quality " ", students were making research-driven installations. (detail), 2008, 40 x 55 14.5" x 15.5" x 9", wood burl, that interests me. Basically, I want the viewer to I was interested in this notion that installation gouache and ink on paper blown glass, acrylic paint think, “What is this thing and what am I doing here over ink wall drawing. seemed to subsume the basic premises of sculp- on acqua resin, wood putty, asking the question, ‘what is this thing’?” If one can ture. Sculpture all of a sudden felt like a subset of Below left: Japanese paper, papier extend that thought then one might ask, “What am I mache, foamcore, armature installation, as opposed to sculpture in the 1970s, David Humphrey: Hobby doing here?” And then, when one encounters things wire, string. when sculpture-as-a-field was a big welcoming Horse, 2008, 8’ x 9’ x 4', out in the world that are unfamiliar there might “umbrella,” sheltering beneath it everything that wood, paint, paper, and Below right: be a funny little echo, a memory of the encounter assorted drawing materials. was not painting—performance, earthworks, video, Orange and pinkspiration, with this sculpture to help you unlock and unblock " x " " and even some photography. As sculpture welcomed Below: 2008, 13.25 31 x 15 , other things unknown. The sculptures then, at best, enamel pant on cast bronze, more extended activities, the object seemed to many David Humphrey: Hobby become instruments of consciousness-raising. Horse (detail), 2008. gouache on epoxy paste on people less and less engaging; barely creditable. I Photo: David Humphrey aluminum armature wire, began feeling dissatisfied with what I was seeing. enamel paint and ink on After I left teaching, I traveled extensively. I went extruded copper, gouache, to India, Africa and Japan. What I realized was that gesso, starch, acqua resin on crushed paper. people in these countries had very important rela- tionships with objects that were small in size, but not Below: at all small in significance—objects like a Japanese Open pink with signs of teacup or a Congo Power god; the equivalent of a life, 2006, 10" x 19" x 12", household saint or a carved stone, covered in flowers Hobby Horse is a drawing display hutch. Its painted cast bronze, oil paint and milk and honey, in a village in India. There was exfoliating skin is made from collaborative on Japanese paper and wire, enamel on wood, flocked an intimacy inherent in these small objects—and works produced in the studios of various fellows paper, papier mache, acqua this intimacy, clearly, elicited feelings of import— of the AAR by whoever happened to be present resin and wood putty. emotions greater than their physical size would and willing. The support is an upended Santa- appear to demand. This seemed quite the opposite of sleigh made by affiliated fellow Jeff Williams for things I had been seeing in Chelsea. I began to think, the annual Christmas play. David Humphrey, like a farmer might, that if everyone was planting faar’09, made Hobby Horse for the third in a their corn on one side of the hill, possibly the min- series of shows called “Drawing as a Social Prac- erals were being depleted and it would be curious to see what happened if I planted my corn on the tice,” organized by the fellows and curated by other side of the hill. So I began making these small Marie Lorenz. objects based upon these little drawings I was doing, which was the only thing I really could do while I was traveling.

SB: Do you ever think of these works as models for larger sculptures?

JN: No. In fact, that question leads me to something I like to call “the scale-less object.” All Western a good model for the “scale-less” object. You see the globe of the world as a sign for the very thing that you can’t see fully, but that you know very well. However, it is an instrument with an expectation of information, as well as an instrument of fantasy, of reverie. It is not primarily about your proximal or kin- esthetic relationship to the object itself, or the actual space you share with that object. The DNA model or Chinese Scholar’s Rocks are also examples of these scale-less instruments of reverie. Imagination as Publications, Exhibitions, Awards, Remembrance [Continued from page 5] “dreamscape” is a space infinitely big, even if it is provoked by an object significantly small. James S. Stokoe, faar’79, and his Thomas L. Bosworth, faar’81, has work on a variety of university, sci- firm, Arch Etal, are involved with the recently had his work published in ence, technology, health, corporate, SB: Unpredictable is an adjective often applied to renovation of the Bayly Art Museum Western Interiors and Design, Luxe, and commercial buildings. Last year your work and the sculptures in this exhibition, as at the University of Virginia. Seattle Metropolitan, Cottage Living, he taught design in the graduate well, offer plenty of riddles regarding their physical Renovation Style, and Pacific North- program in architecture at Roger nature. west Magazine. Williams University. 1 9 8 0 s JN: Yes, these sculptures are very much in contrast to Spence Kass, faar’81, had a house Anna Campbell Bliss, faar’84, is the usual concepts of gravity and truth to the mate- Albert Boime, faar’80, art histo- renovation featured in the “Before preparing for three shows of her rial. I would like my works to be more buoyant, more rian. and After” issue of Architectural current work. illusionistic, although usually we associate terms like Digest (February 2009). “A Pennsyl- Born 17 March 1933, died 18 October Gregory A. Staley, faar’84, that—at least in the visual arts—with the territory of vania Chronicle” highlights Kass 2008. He was 75 years old. recently edited American Women painting. & Associates’ role in restoring a and Classical Myths, published by “Although my study treats the 1910 residence on the grounds of SB: It gives them a magical quality, defying the Baylor University Press in 2008. modern period, Rome remains the the Andalusia Foundation, whose common sense of what is possible. His Seneca and the Idea of Tragedy symbolic and pedagogic mecca 80 acres in Andalusia, PA, include will be published later this year by JN: There is a contradictory element in my work; for students of academies and art buildings by Benjamin Latrobe and Oxford University Press. paradoxical and even fictional—as strange as that schools. A major section of my study Thomas V. Walter. will explore academic extensions sounds—since an object is a concrete thing. But to Olga Raggio, raar’84, scholar and for advanced study in Rome like the Laurie Nussdorfer, faar’81, is the actually turn that idea upside down and to wonder curator. American Academy itself.” author of Brokers of Public Trust: how something is “actually there” is of interest to —from Albert Boime’s Rome Prize Notaries in Early Modern Rome, Born 5 February 1926, died 24 me. The same applies to the material. In these works, application, on his preparation for forthcoming from Johns Hopkins January 2009. She was 82 years old. you often do not know what material the parts are a manuscript on academies and art University Press. made of. And, yet, another component joined to “That’s the fun of this job. You’re schools from 1850 to 1950 one of these parts will be absolutely obvious as to Joseph B. Solodow, faar’81, is involved all the time with questions professor of foreign languages at of scholarship and connoisseurship, its material and its making. I think of processes and Southern Connecticut State Univer- yet you deal with very concrete materials as metaphors—fraught with meaning and sity and a lecturer in classics at Yale, works of art. You have to interpret association—and by placing disparate ones together, Olga Raggio oversaw the restoration where he teaches an advanced Latin them—make the scholarship alive I hope to achieve a resonance not unlike the ringing and display of this jewel of Renaissance of a tuning fork that will create a third thing, an course each semester. and relevant. The challenge is to keep architecture, a 15th-century private study invented, unknown and un-nameable consequence From Albert Boime’s 1985 essay “Van high standards of scholarship while acquired by the Metropolitan Museum Larry Bell, faar’83, had a new Gogh’s Starry Night: A History of Matter maintaining showmanship as well.” in 1939 and restored in 1996. of that conjoining. and a Matter of History,” comparing CD released by Albany Records: —Olga Raggio on her work at the Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Unchanging Love: Brass and Organ SB: Let us speak about the concept of intimacy in the astronomical projection of the sky Metropolitan Museum, from a 1971 relation to your work—the notion that one has to over Saint-Remy on 19 June 1889 with Music. New York Times interview Boime’s schematic sketch of Starry Night get incredibly close to engage with them. Intimacy John J. McDonald, Jr., faar’83, is [Continued on page 15] with Venus and Aries. can lead to the thorough knowledge of something the design director of the Boston office of Perkins + Will, overseeing 10 Society of Fellows news spring 2009 11

Researching Rossini in Rome Letter from the SOF President

Hilary Poriss, faar’07 T. Corey Brennan, faar’88

he premiere of Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber (Rossini knew that this sort of substitution went what they knew their audiences wanted to hear. icture this. It’s a photo of what should be imme- our campus (which now looks dazzling side of the Atlantic (often with audio or video Tof Seville on 20 February 1816 was a disaster. on, but in general he didn’t complain.) Which When Verdi’s music came into vogue in the Pdiately recognizable as the AAR dining room. A throughout), or think of the ambitious pro- content). And, of course, there is the SOF News, Under-rehearsed singers, unpracticed orchestral arias did prima donnas choose, and why did 1840s and ’50s, prima donnas introduced arias half dozen fellows are seated at a long table in gramming that has long been in place. elegantly recast by ex-SOF president James musicians, and a series of stage accidents all they consistently make such alterations to this from his operas; at the end of the 19th century, various states of concentration—some talking, Bodnar, faar’80, and Joel Katz, faar’03, to Notwithstanding our size, success has steadily combined to displease the unruly audience at opera? These questions occupied my attention when French and German operas were filtering most listening. All are peeling mushrooms. The appear once again as a semiannual publication. built upon success. My perception that eve- Rome’s Teatro Argentina. Ever confident in his over the course of several months, and I was down into Italian theaters, prima donnas sub- caption? “Volunteers pitch in to prepare meals ning and as I write this almost a year later is The SOF Council is already working on the new abilities, Rossini was unfazed by the heckling able to answer them thanks to archival resources stituted arias from those works (in their original harvested from farms surrounding the American the same. At no point in its long life—even Centennial Directory of the American Academy in crowd. He went home, got a good night’s sleep, available in Rome. languages). The Barber of Seville became a Academy in Rome.” given today’s unexpectedly tough financial and Rome. It will be a thorough revision and expan- and returned to the theater the following day, receptacle for popular music both old and new. The most accommodating library for this You may have seen this feature—“In Rome, the exchange climate—has the AAR enterprise seen sion of the 1995 print edition, but now with an certain that his opera would do just fine. He Though there is much to love about Rossini’s project was the Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Academy Learns to Cook”—which appeared better days. The exciting developments of the image-rich online component to complement was, of course, correct. The Romans in atten- entire opera, the highpoint for many audience Burcardo, located on the Via del Sudario off the (fittingly enough) on the Ides of March in the last few years in the culture of the Academy may the hardcopy version. This new Directory project dance for the second performance were more members was finding out which aria the prima Largo Argentina, where the Teatro Argentina Styles section of the New York Times. Here well turn out to be permanently transformative. is a collaborative effort that aims to engage every appreciative, and by the end of the season the donna would sing during the lesson scene. The still looms proudly. Sitting for hours on end in writer Elisabeth Rosenthal highlighted the But the SOF and its members still have a lot to living AAR fellow, resident, or affiliate over the opera was an unmitigated success. The Barber promise of hearing one of their own favorite this warm, welcoming, wood-beamed archive, vision and hard work of food luminary Alice do to keep our institution on its current sharp next two and a half years. The target publication of Seville went on to receive more productions arias kept some spectators coming back to hear I sorted through piles of material that offered Waters and AAR executive chef Mona Talbott upward trajectory. date of the print and electronic versions coin- in more theaters over the next few decades than the opera again and again. tiny, yet illuminating, clues pertaining to the in completely reimagining the Academy dining cides with the end of the AAR Comprehensive any other opera of its time, and it is one of the Three ways to help come immediately to mind. lesson scene. The most revealing documents Reconstructing the performance and recep- experience. The article heaped superlatives Campaign in February 2011. few operas from the first decades of the 19th Encourage talented friends, acquaintances, col- were reviews in 19th-century newspapers. An tion history of The Barber of Seville’s lesson on their Rome Sustainable Food Project as an century that have maintained an uninterrupted leagues, and students to apply for a Rome Prize. As it happens, 18 months will also be the total article in Teatri arti e letteratura, for example, scene would have been an exciting endeavor in inspiring model for healthy and responsible presence in the international repertory. Respond to (or anticipate) the Academy’s fund- length of my presidency of the SOF. By 1 July tells us that the young mezzo-soprano Chiara any city, but being able to do so in Rome, in institutional dining. Indeed, the piece described raising appeals by giving what is asked or what of this year, I will have stepped down from that My time in Rome was devoted in part to Gualdi introduced Giovanni Pacini’s aria “Ah a library situated only a few hundred meters how in just two short years the RSFP had not you can afford. And support as many of the post to take up a position on the AAR staff—as exploring one of the strangest facets of this sì di nuova speme,” for which she was “greeted away from the opera house where the opera just fully integrated itself into the social and Academy’s organized events as you can manage. Andrew W. Mellon Professor-in-Charge in the opera’s extended performance history, and with the most universal and lively applause.” was premiered, offered its own special thrill. intellectual culture of the Academy, but also School of Classical Studies. one that helps explain its longevity: revivals of The Burcardo houses dozens of these news- As I walked past the Teatro Argentina each significantly enhanced collaborative dialogue Major AAR gatherings have flooded the 2009 The Barber of Seville almost always included papers, and skimming through them allowed morning on my way to the Burcardo archive, I there—and with it the creativity and drive of the calendar. In January there was the recep- You may have seen the ad when it ran, listing music that had nothing to do with Rossini’s me to compile a long list of prima donnas and was inspired by thoughts of Rossini, his opera, fellows. tion hosted by architects Stephen Kieran, the daunting range of responsibilities attached the arias they introduced into Rossini’s opera and the exhilaration that 19th-century audiences faar’81, and James Timberlake, faar’83, at to the position. The way I interpreted it all is score. During the second act “lesson scene,” For me, that photo of the mushroom prep cap- throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. would have felt as they entered the Argentina their Philadelphia firm in conjunction with the that it is the job of the Mellon Professor to ani- the prima donna in the starring role of Rosina tured two crucial attributes of the RSFP. First, for a revival of The Barber of Seville, looking joint meetings of the American Philological mate the humanities for the AAR as a whole. would eliminate the aria that Rossini wrote for Not surprisingly, most prima donnas selected of course, is the emphasis on local, delicious, forward to hearing the music dearest to their Association and the Archaeological Institute The first responsibility of the Professor-in- her (“Contro un cor”) and substitute one of arias that vividly showcased their virtuosic sustainable food. (My guess is that those funghi hearts. of America. There Kieran and Timberlake pre- Charge is, of course, facilitating the work of her own favorite arias. These arias originated talents. But contemporary newspaper reviews came out of the Academy’s own garden 20 sented the details of their $250,000 challenge the fellows, residents, and visiting scholars in in different operas, and many were written by also reveal that singers’ choices were not based minutes earlier.) Second, and quite essential for grant to endow an assistant for permessi at the the School of Classical Studies, orienting them composers other than Rossini; their texts often exclusively on whim and conceit. Rather, prima the success of the RSFP, is the fellows’ feeling AAR. In February, an unusually memorable (as needed) to Italy and introducing them to had nothing to do with the dramatic situation. donnas had an eye (or, rather, an ear) toward of group investment in mealtimes, and their SOF get-together in Los Angeles’ Chinatown their Italian peers, all in the context of a care- unprompted willingness to volunteer time and was organized by the LA area fellows to coincide fully planned and budgeted program. That talent in the service of the community. with the meeting of the College Art Association. program needs to be both coherent and intel- “Perhaps the highest compliment,” wrote In March, in nearby Ojai, Fred Fisher, faar’08, lectually inspiring—to all at the Academy, not Rosenthal in the Times article, “is that one of and his wife, Jennie Prebor, generously helped just the scholars in the humanities fields. For last year’s fellows in music composition has stage a benefit for the Rome Sustainable Food that I will be working closely with the Heiskell Interview with Paul Moravec returned—this time to intern in the kitchen.” Project with Alice Waters. Arts Director and the Director of the AAR in developing and executing coordinated or joint That would be Yotam Haber, faar’08, who The centerpiece of the Academy’s events year programmatic initiatives. Conducted by James L. Bodnar, interned at the RSFP from December 2008 came on 15 April at Cipriani on 42nd Street in 4 march 2009 through February 2009. Indeed, when I vis- New York City—an electrifying gala to benefit But I also plan to continue the work of ited the Academy this January, fellow and the arts and honor AAR trustee and architect enhancing AAR communications that I started 8. 00 fellow-traveler volunteers seemed to be Thom Mayne, artist Bruce Nauman, and opera with the SOF. I’ll remain as administrator of the e 2 un everywhere: most conspicuously in singer Jessye Norman. In early May John Cary, Weblog and Facebook group and editor , J SOF his interview was conducted for the SOF News to seems to me they were the ones to talk with to So my role was basically a facilitator, and I think a n the kitchen (where Haber told the people who did the really heavy lifting were Liz, ia faar’08, and his firm Public Architecture will of the new Centennial Directory. There are only discuss the origin of the project that led up to the move it along. ra T T me he reported for duty at 7 sponsor a reception at the 2009 convention about 1,300 living members of the Society of Fel- release of the 4-CD set titled Americans in Rome: who did a tremendous amount, and Don, who did a u So I happened to see Bob at a birthday concert that q am) and bar, but also in the of the American Institute of Architects. The lows. It strikes me as crucial for us to be more all the legwork and all that, and whose idea it was A Music by Fellows of the American Academy in Rome I helped put together for Milton Babbitt, the com- e in the first place. h library, in the lecture hall McKim Medal Gala, honoring Academy Award– readily connected to each other and the institu- by Bridge Records in November 2008. t

poser, at the Century Club, and it was a big to-do. g

n (helping with AV needs), winning composer Ennio Morricone, falls on tion, and to have several vehicles for conveying i JAMES BODNAR: I’m going to begin, Paul, by asking After the dinner, I suggested to him that he seri- JB: Could you touch on the four-CD set—the con- r o l and here and there in the 27 May. Proceeds from that event, to be held in the value of our Rome experience to the larger

you how you originally became involved in the ously consider pursuing this project. He knew about tent of it, the range of compositions, and how it p

x e

was made up? AAR, running all sorts of Rome at the Villa Aurelia, go to support fellow- public, if we really are to keep the Academy music project that resulted in the release of the it, and he said he would see what he could do. Then n

a informal classes (including music CD set. the ball started rolling. n ships at the AAR for Italian artists and scholars. miracle going.

PM: I don’t know of another project like this. It’s n

e

r high-level art instruction for B

about as comprehensive a history of the Academy There is more to come: a planned September

PAUL MORAVEC: I met Don Berman, who eventually John Harbison then got involved, and we got y

e Academy children).

r became the artistic director for the entire project, in together with Kathryn Alexander (faar’89), who in music as you can imagine in one little box. It o reception in Chicago at the annual meeting of Rome—I believe it was 1999 in the summer. That’s was also on the Council of the Society of Fellows would be great if we could complete the series with C “I came back to cook at the the American Society of Landscape Architects, when he was doing his project, going through the with me at the time, and Don, who was the pro- a second set—there are just too many composers American Academy,” Haber and, on Wednesday, 2 December, in New York, to fit into one set of CDs. That would be great, files and the library researching the music of past gram director. The two board members, Bob and explained elsewhere, “because I a “Cabaret for the Academy” to benefit the

and quite possibly have other pieces by Samuel P fellows. Then after we both came back to the U.S., I John, were great, devoting their time to the whole ho knew I wanted to return in some way to: arts, chaired by AAR trustee Laurie Anderson Barber, faar’37, and Elliott Carter, faar’54, raar’80, Mich r’07 kept running into him occasionally and asking him process. At some point we solicited scores from ael Johnson, faa or another to that extraordinary place, and (raar’06) and others. The venue is the Angel and maybe a few residents—for example, Aaron what was going on with the results of his research. composers all over, all fellows; and also, building working in the kitchen felt like a road less taken, Orensanz Foundation Center for the Arts on He had this idea to do a concert series of American on Don’s research, we assembled a lot of scores of Copland, raar’51, who seemed to benefit from the a way of seeing the Academy in a new light.” Norfolk Street in lower Manhattan. (It must be composers in Rome, and I thought that was a great dead former fellows from archives and out-of-print experience, even though he wasn’t a fellow. That seen to be believed.) idea. So we stayed in touch over the months and scores. We spent a couple of days at the Academy would be ideal. I hope that down the road we can Full disclosure: I haven’t yet washed a vegetable represent everybody because of course all the com- years about how this was progressing. offices going through the scores and selecting— or lifted a paring knife for the RSFP. But I will The main point of this first-ever “fellows’ this would have been Kathryn, me, and Don. We posers are deserving in one form or another, and I then saw him at some music conference, and claim to have had an experience after which I gala” is to reintroduce the Academy to future Copies of Americans in had a lot of material to go through, a lot of things we just had to make the cut somewhere. that was, I believed, in 2001. It was in New York. He too viewed the Academy in a new light. It came fellows—and in the process have a great Rome: Music by Fellows to listen to, and a lot of things to play on the piano told me he wasn’t getting anywhere. I said I could I should mention that the composers who we at a June 2008 rosette ceremony in the AAR party. Laurie Anderson will be just one of the of the American Academy because there are no recordings of them. We put in Rome, can be purchased talk to Bob Beaser (faar’78). He and John Harbison originally programmed on the concert series are all together a program. cortile. Just a minute or so before representing well-known performers taking the stage that from Amazon.com or directly (raar’81) were both AAR board members, and it represented on this CD, but not necessarily by the the SOF at the graduation exercises, I took December evening. By the end of the night, it’s from Bridge Records: http:// pieces that we programmed. In fact, for example, I JB: And this is just preparing for the concert series? a good look at the year’s fellows. The group hoped that everyone will be convinced that the bridgerecords.com. wrote a piece specifically for this CD called Passa- PM: Yes, That was enough to be concerned with. caglia, which is performed by the Trio Solisti. They seemed absolutely tiny against the monumental, AAR is one of the top creative and intellectual We weren’t even thinking about the CD—at least I performed my Mood Swings on the original series. immaculate McKim, Mead and White setting. spots in the world, especially because of its com- wasn’t. So, while the composers’ names are the same, the Then a simple but (to me) powerful thought hit mitment to promoting conversations across and JB: Was there a commitment for where the concert pieces originally represented are not in some cases, me. It’s a miracle that an American Academy in among disciplines. which I think is a nice way of diversifying the reper- Rome exists at all. would be held by that time? The December Cabaret is an outreach effort, toire of the composers represented. 2 PM: Liz is the one to ask about that because she Put another way, I never before had fully an attempt to broadcast some of the Academy’s set that up with the Weill Recital Hall. I don’t know JB: This is now part of the history of the AAR. grasped how small and how potentially fragile vitality, especially to potential fellowship appli- how she did it, but she did it miraculously. Those PM: In a sense, yes, it’s a historical document. the AAR is as an institution. Just take a look at cants. As such, it will complement the “inreach” dates are very hard to come by, and she did it on Scholars, at least, in the future will look at this our alumni group. The SOF admits about three efforts that the SOF has initiated over the past pretty short notice, as I understand. So she found collection as a kind of snapshot of a few of us in dozen new members per year. Then take a look 18 months—a Facebook group exclusive to SOF four dates in the fall of 2002. You came to the the early 21st century trying to get a sense of the at the breathtaking resources on the 11 acres of members (great for instant directed communi- concerts, so you remember all that. I thought it all history of the first 90 years of the AAR music fel- went very well. I thought it was very successful. cations), a weblog (http://sofaarome.wordpress. lowship program. com) detailing AAR news as it breaks on either 12 Society of Fellows news spring 2009 13

Campaign News—A Gift and a Sketches from Rajasthan Challenge Elizabeth Gray Kogen Stephen Harby, faar’00

ccess to Rome is a central promise of the Rome “I am sitting at my desk in the office this morning In making their gift, the partners join the cam- ravel for me has become a quest for what I gains a sense of total immersion, not only visu- that has been achieved by others in the past add A Prize and membership in the Academy commu- as I write this. There are two shoe boxes filled paign for the Academy’s second century in a Tsee as the essence of a place as framed by its ally, but through the sounds, smells, and (most immensely to our own vocabulary of forms and nity. It is fulfilled through formal programs and with thousands of index cards beneath my desk. very significant way: by asking all fellows to architecture: an understanding of how a highly rewardingly) tastes that a prolonged stay in solutions. through opportunities for individual research On those index cards are drawings and notes join them in endowing this staff position. An sophisticated and organized armature can give these favorite places makes part of the experi- The current portfolio is from a journey to some and study at Italian sites and collections. Many that record one architect’s observations and additional $250,000 is needed to complete the focus, order, and meaning to the experience of ence. of the less well known places of Rajasthan in important sites and other resources for scholarly thoughts on the secrets of Rome and Italy. They endowment. If every fellow were to give $155, a place, and indeed to our existence as human I am often asked how the process of observing northern India. Our group had all previously research and artistic investigation are private. are never far from me, and I continue to draw the goal would be met immediately; if only 125 beings. The elements of this armature—which and sketching the architecture of the past visited the more famous places (like Udaipur, They are open to artists and scholars strictly upon them twenty-six years later for inspiration fellows pledge $500 a year in each of the next include scale, proportion, color, light, and informs one’s own architectural design. Many Jaipur, etc.), so this trip took us to a series of by permission, a privilege obtainable only by and reflection. Across the office, James is also at four years, the position will be fully endowed meaning—I have found to be best experienced architects design imaginary and fantastic proj- princely states, each with its own distinct iden- petition—and familiarity with the process. his desk, as we both work to close out what has by 2011—the year we plan to conclude the cam- and understood through the extended con- ects not intending them to be built, but my own tity and often a spectacular palace turned into a been an extraordinary year for us and recently paign. tact with them gained through sketching and The key to the city of Rome, for both group engagement with the fantastic and the excellent magnificent hotel. culminated in the AIA National Firm Award. painting watercolors. and individual visits, is often the permis- Every fellow benefits from the work of the per- and the speculation about its potential applica- Beneath his desk is an extraordinary collection sions assistant, a staff member responsible for missions assistant. Year after year, Rome Prize When one is obliged to remain in one spot for tion to our own lives is focused on the great of postcards and drawings acquired and made securing access to archeological sites, libraries, winners report discoveries in libraries and col- longer than the snap of a shutter, sketching or achievements that surround us in the world. during his stay at the academy. For both of us, it Below: gardens, and collections, including those in pri- lections that they would not have been able to painting with patience and concentration, one Their lessons about the mastery and richness was the permissions coordinator who unlocked Neemrana Fort Palace, vate hands. This staff member’s reach extends visit without special permission; they recount all those closed doors that continue to reveal Rajasthan beyond Rome to individual and group-study their adventures during trips to explore little- so much. (We can still recall the puzzled stares travel throughout Italy and other lands once known and rarely seen sites; and they comment that seemed to say, ‘You want to see what?’). We part of the Roman Empire. on all they learned at a site that they thought remain deeply grateful for all those permessi.” Elizabeth Gray Kogen, was very familiar until a hidden aspect of it was Many Academy alumni consider the permis- —Stephen Kieran 9 January 2009, Philadel- revealed by another fellow. phia, PA. sions assistant to be the key to the entire AAR “We’re very grateful to be able to do this. As Steve Photo: James Bodnar experience. Two fellows in architecture, Stephen By contributing to the Permissions Assistant has said, eloquently as he usually does, we share Kieran and James Timberlake, now partners in Endowment, fellows express their gratitude for fond memories of our different times in Rome at KieranTimberlake Associates llp, have made a the unstinting effort of the many members of the AAR and are deeply thankful for the permessi generous gift to endow this position and secure the Academy’s staff, and at the same time help that got us into some secret and memorable it for all time. They do so in recognition of the ensure that this support and attention will be places. I didn’t return to Rome until five years effect their own visits continue to have on their there for Rome Prize winners for years to come. ago, when I brought my wife, Meg, there for her work today: first visit, and my son, Harrison, for his first (to Contributions to the Permissions Assistant Italy as well), and it brought tears to my eyes to Endowment should be made out to the Amer- remember all the great things that Rome and the ican Academy in Rome, 7 East 60th Street, New AAR had done for me, and us. I hope there will York, NY 10022. be many more such visits. The great year Steve and I each had was based on a foundation laid in Rome. Thank you all for that.”—James Tim- berlake

Above: Narlai, Rajasthan as viewed from Rawla Hunting Lodge

Above: Right: Stephen Kieran, faar’81, Cellophane House, 2008, James Timberlake, faar’83. designed by KieranTimber- Photo: Peter Aaron/Esto lake, is an off-site fabricated dwelling commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art for the exhibition “Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling.” It con- Above: fronts several agendas head Rambagh Palace, Jaipur, on: the economy of off-site Rajsathan fabrication, design for dis- assembly, the use of recycled Left: and recyclable materials, Kedri Mahal, 17th century, and the next generation of Jhunjhunu, Shekwati, SmartWrap™, a high perfor- Rajasthan mance building skin. Photo: Peter Aaron/Esto 14 Society of Fellows news spring 2009 15

Rome Fellows 2008–2009 Board of Trustees and SOF Council

visual arts National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew The Oscar Broneer SoF NEWS SOF Council 2008–2010 Board of Trustees Arts W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Rome Prize Traveling Fellowship T. Corey Brennan, faar’88, President Laurie Anderson, raar’06 John Armstrong Chaloner/Jacob H. Lazarus– John Parker, Associate Professor, will not be offered in Spring 2009 Joanne Spurza, faar’88, Treasurer Mercedes T. Bass, Vice Chairman architecture Metropolitan Museum of Art Rome Prize Department of English, Macalester College 2010–2011. The next Published by the Society of Fellows Wendy Heller, faar’98, Secretary Robert Beaser, faar’78 Hisham M. Bizri, Filmmaker and Assistant Drama and the Death of God, or The Gospel of Seneca Arnold W. Brunner Rome Prize Broneer Fellow will be of the American Academy in Rome Boris Biancheri Professor of Film, Department of Cultural Studies and Vice Presidents 2006–2010 Matthew Hural, Lecturer, Department of chosen from the Fel- Suzanne Deal Booth Comparative Literature, University of Minnesota 7 East 60th Street Tom Bolt, faar’94 Architecture, University of Virginia modern italian studies lows of the American T. Corey Brennan, faar’88• Screenplay: The Last Day of Summer New York, NY 10022-1001 USA Brian Curran, faar’94 Designer, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects School in Athens and Mary Schmidt Campbell Paul Mellon Post-Doctoral Rome Prize 212.751.7200 Paul Davis, faar’98 Between Inside and Out: Aurelian Gates , Video Director and Publisher, will be based at the Verdella Caracciolo di Forino Harold M. English Rome Prize Margaret Fisher www.sof-aarome.org Kim Hartswick, faar’99 , Artist and Instructor, Second Evening Art / BMI American Academy in Adele Chatfield-Taylor, faar’84• David Humphrey Editor Joel Katz, faar’03 Gorham P. Stevens Rome Prize School of Art, Yale University Through the Eyes of Children: A Re-assessment of the Rome. David M. Childs, raar’04 James L. Bodnar, faar’80 Catherine Seavitt Nordenson, faar’98 Ursula Emery McClure and Michael A. Blind Handshake Role of Futurism in the Development of Early Italian Chuck Close, raar’96 McClure, Principals, emerymcclure architecture Radio under Fascism Co-Editors Council Members 2006–2010 Daniel G. Cohen Terra Viscus: Hybrid Tectonic Precedent Michael Conforti, faar’76, raar’08 Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize Joanne Spurza, faar’89 Susan Boynton, faar’99 Donald and Maria Cox Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize Catherine Seavitt Nordenson, faar’98 Diana Cooper, faar’04 Carmela Vircillo Franklin, faar’85, raar’02• Marie Lorenz, Artist, Brooklyn, NY 20% Discount on design Gregory Tentler, History of Art, University of Michael Gruber, faar’96 Bernard D. Frischer, faar’76, raar’97 Tiber River Navigation Memoirs of the Amer- Pennsylvania Design Blake Middleton, faar’82 Elaine K. Gazda Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Rome Prize ican Academy in Rome Made in Italy: Piero Manzoni and the Birth of the Joel Katz, faar’03 Barbara Goldsmith David Erdman, Department of Architecture and Abigail Cohen Rome Prize International Avant-Garde, 1954–1963 Memoirs of the American Marie Azcueta Council Members 2008–2012 Richard L. Grubman Urban Design, University of California, Los Angeles Matthew Monteith, Artist/Photographer, Richard Barnes, faar’06 Academy in Rome William B. Hart, Chairman of the Board Principal, davidclovers Brooklyn, NY Editing John Marciari, faar’98 renaissance and early modern (MAAR) appears annually Rea S. Hederman Plasticity Now Living City, Living Art Jane Barry Franco Mondini-Ruiz, faar’05 studies in hardback form. Drue Heinz Linda Pellecchia, faar’92 Katherine Edwards Gordon Rome Prize Individuals can now sub- Mary Margaret Jones, faar’98 Marian and Andrew Heiskell Pre-Doctoral Elizabeth Walmsley, faar’01 Cathy Lang Ho, Independent writer and editor Rome Prize scribe at a reduced rate. Stay in touch! Wendy Evans Joseph, faar’84 Humanities Please send notices of address change, snail mail and Broadband Architecture: A Study of How Media Eric Bianchi, Department of Music, Yale University Read your friends’ arti- Members Ex Officio Thomas F. Kelly, faar’86, raar’02 especially e-mail, to the SOF and the AAR, through: Outlets Are Challenging the Authority of Print Center of the World: Athanasius Kircher at the Jesuit cles on Rome and Italy at James Bodnar, faar’80, President Emeritus Paul LeClerc, Vice Chairman ancient studies the SOF website, www.sof-aarome.org; Shawn Publications Colleges of Rome 20% off. Diane Britz Lotti Emeline Hill Richardson/Samuel H. Kress Miller, SOF Liaison, [email protected]; phone at Adele Chatfield-Taylor, raar’84, President of the Thom Mayne Foundation Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize For the reduced rate 212.751.7200 x 42; or fax to 212.751.7220. American Academy in Rome historic preservation and Richard Meier, raar’74 (year one of a two-year fellowship) Millicent Mercer Johnsen Post-Doctoral go to http://www. Carmela Vircillo Franklin, faar’85, raar’02, conservation , McIntire Department of Art, Rome Prize Join the Campaign for the Academy Scott Craver press.umich.edu/series. Director of the American Academy in Rome Roberto A. Mignone University of Virginia , Assistant Professor, Be part of the campaign for the Academy’s second Elizabeth McCahill do?id=UM96 and use Elizabeth Bartman, faar’83, President Emerita Susan Nitze National Endowment for the Arts Rome Prize Patterns of Complexity: An Index and Analysis of Department of History, University of the South century. You may make a gift on-line at www.aarome. , Decor Project Manager, the code AARMEM when org, or send your contribution, payable to the Jack Beeson, faar’50, President Emeritus Nancy M. O’Boyle Andrew J. Kranis Urban Property Investment at Pompeii Reinventing Rome, 1400–1450 Whole Foods Market checking out. American Academy in Rome Virginia Bush Suttman, faar’77, President John A. Pinto, faar’75, raar’06 Green Piazza: Community Ecology in the City 7 East 60th Street Emerita Jessie H. Price, Chairman of the Executive Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Pre-Doctoral New York, NY 10022-1001 USA Committee Rome Prize Michael Graves, faar’62, raar’78, President Michael C.J. Putnam, faar’64, raar’70 Booth Family Rome Prize Susan A. Curry, Department of Classical Studies, Planned Giving to the Academy Emeritus Michael Rock, faar’00 Rosa Lowinger, Conservator of Sculpture and Indiana University For those to whom the Academy has been important, Pamela Keech, faar’82, President Emerita Human Identities and Animal Others in the Second who wish to make a bequest, the following language C. Brian Rose, faar’92 Architecture, Los Angeles Peter Rolland, faar’78, President Emeritus Art Vandalism: A Comprehensive Study of Its Causes Century C.E. is suggested: “I give (the sum of ______dol- John M. Shapiro J. Michael Schwarting, faar’70, President and Effects, with an Emphasis on Conservation of lars or euros), (all or ____ percent of the residuary of Robert B. Silvers my estate), to the American Academy in Rome, Emeritus Contemporary Public Art Frances Barker Tracy/Samuel H. Kress Foundation/ Laurie Simmons, raar’05 7 East 60th Street, New York, NY, 10022-1001, for (its Helen M. Woodruff Fellowship of the Archaeolog- Michael I. Sovern, Chairman Emeritus general purposes) or (the Library, Fellowship Fund, ical Institute of America Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize Mark Strand, raar’83 landscape architecture (year two of a two-year fellowship) Publications Fund, maintenance of the buildings and Steven Stucky, raar’06 John North Hopkins, Department of Art and gardens, Rome Sustainable Food Program, etc.).” Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize Billie Tsien, raar’00 Art History, University of Texas at Austin The bequest may be funded with cash, bonds or , Senior Associate, Christopher Counts The Topographical Transformation of Archaic Rome: marketable securities. The Academy is a not-for- Fred Wilson Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc., A New Interpretation of Architecture and Geography in profit, tax-exempt entity [501(c)3]. Contributions are • ex officio Landscape Architects the Early City tax-deductible. For more information, please contact Painting and Drawing as a Means to Study the Spatial [email protected] or 212.751.7200 x 27. Life Trustee Registration, Appropriated Use, and Movement of Michael Graves, faar’62, raar’79 Masterpieces of the Italian Urban Landscape Andrew Heiskell Post-Doctoral Rome Prize Patricia Larash, Assistant Professor, Department of Classical Studies, Boston University Garden Club of America Rome Prize Martial's Readers, Rome's Audiences Hope H. Hasbrouck, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, University of Texas at Austin Arthur Ross Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize Interpreting Cultural Territories through Prospect Publications, Exhibitions, Awards, Remembrance [Continued from page 9] , Department of Classics, and Passage Matthew Notarian University at Buffalo Jesse Reiser, faar’85, and his firm, London, and the Department of Art 2000s Michael Scott Cuthbert, faar’05, Vittorio Ripa di Meana, Trustee Dorothy Cullman, Trustee Emerita literature Civic Transformation in Early Imperial Latium: Reiser + Umemoto, designed 0-14, a and Art History at the University of received a grant from the Seaver 2005–2008, lawyer. 1991–2004, philanthropist. An Archaeological and Social History of Praeneste, 22-story office tower in Dubai, which Texas at Austin. Alice Boccia Paterakis, faar’00, Institute for his ongoing project on Born 19 September 1927, died 29 Born 18 February 1918, died 6 April John Guare Writer’s Fund Rome Prize, a gift of Tibur and Tusculum will be completed in September became in 2008 the director computer-aided musicology. He will H. Alan Shapiro, raar’97, recently December 2008. He was 81 years old. 2009. She was 91 years old. Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman 2009. CBS/Discovery Channel fea- of conservation at the Kaman- be a fellow next year at Villa I Tatti curated the exhibition “Worshipping Brad Kessler, Writer tured the building in “Impossible Kaleöyük Excavation in Turkey for in Florence, writing on music during National Endowment for the Humanities/ Women: Ritual and Reality in Clas- Editing The Goat Diaries and starting a new novel City” for its innovative concrete exo- the Japanese Institute of Anatolian the Black Death and the Great Andrew Heiskell Post-Doctoral Rome Prize sical Athens” at the Onassis Cultural skeleton, which serves as structure, Archaeology and a research editor Schism. Hérica Valladares, Assistant Professor, Center in New York; it was reviewed sunscreen, and sustainable cooling for the Getty Research Institute, Los Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize, a gift of the Drue Heinz Department of Classics, Johns Hopkins University in the New York Times. Charles Norman Mason, faar’06, Trust/American Academy of Arts and Letters jacket. Angeles, CA. On Tenderness: The Semantics of Love in Roman dubbed one of “today’s most innova- , Writer Marshall Strabala, the Chicago Dana Spiotta Painting and Poetry Gordon Powell, faar’88, had an Kim Jones, faar’02, participated tive American musical thinkers” by Architecture Club/Burnham Prize Unnamed novel exhibition of new constructions in the exhibition entitled “The Third the American Composers Orchestra, affiliated fellow in 1997, is serving medieval studies at Perimeter Gallery, Chicago. He Mind: American Artists Contemplate has composed a new work for the as the director of design at Gensler. recently published a limited-edition Asia, 1860–1989” at the Guggen- ACO, which was premiered in Zankel musical composition Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Ground was recently broken for the print with Anchor Graphics at heim Museum in New York in the Hall in the spring of 2008. Rome Prize Shanghai Tower, a 120-story mixed- Luciano Berio Rome Prize Columbia College in Chicago and spring of 2009. Carrie Bene&, Assistant Professor of Medieval and use building. Dennis Y. Ichiyama, faar’07, , Assistant Professor of Music, designed a wine label for the Ben- Trustee Dorothy Cullman and her hus- Keeril Makan Renaissance History, New College of Florida Sinclair Bell, faar’03, edited Role made a presentation in October zinger Family Winery of Glen Ellen, A documentary on Winslow band Lewis at the April 2001 AAR benefit Massachusetts Institute of Technology SPQR Transformed: Post-Classical Fortunes of a Models in the Roman World: Identity 2008 at the annual conference of CA. Homer by Steven J. Ross, the 1998 dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street, New York. Three new works: Hover for electric guitar and Classical Acronym and Assimilation, with Inge Lyse the American Printing History Asso- Southern Regional Visiting Artist Image courtesy of the AAR Archives orchestra; trio for flute, viola, and harp; and Tracker, Hansen; it was published by the ciation, held at the Grolier Club and Vittorio Ripa di Meana. affiliated fellow, was broadcast on a chamber opera 1990s University of Michigan Press in Columbia University, and at the Jan- Samuel H. Kress Foundation Pre-Doctoral public television in the fall of 2008, 2008. uary 2009 meeting of the Society of Rome Prize Mary Caponegro, faar’92, will after screenings at over a dozen Typographic Arts at Lake Geneva, WI. Elliott Carter Rome Prize (year two of a two-year fellowship) publish her new collection of stories museums in the United States and Joel Katz, faar’03, lectured last fall He returns to the AAR this spring Kurt Rhode, Assistant Professor, Composition/ Erik Gustafson, Institute of Fine Arts, in July 2009 (Coffee House Press). Europe. at Temple University Rome and at as a visiting artist to continue his Theory, Department of Music, University of New York University The final novella of the collection is Cornell in Rome and this spring at An exhibition of photographs by research at the Tipoteca Italiana California, Davis Tradition and Renewal in the 13th-Century Franciscan set in Rome. the University of Louisville. He now museum in Cornuda, Italy. Co-director, Empyrean Ensemble Architecture of Tuscany Anthony Hernandez, faar’99, teaches a course in information John R. Clarke, raar’95, received at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Van- Artistic Director, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble design at the University of the Arts Molissa Fenley, faar’08, had a res- an NEH Collaborative Research couver, Canada, was curated by Jeff Two new works: violin concertino for violinist Axel in Philadelphia as well as at Phila- idency for three weeks early in 2009 Phyllis G. Gordan/Samuel H. Kress Foundation Grant for the Oplontis Project. The Wall and accompanied by a cata- Strauss, and puppet opera entitled A Shadow Opera delphia University. at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize OP aims to create a definitive pub- (year one of a two-year fellowship) logue. New Smyrna Beach, Florida. lication of Villa A (of “Poppaea”) at A new book by Susan Yelavich, , Department of the Annie Montgomery Labatt Torre Annunziata. It is a collabora- faar’04, entitled Ted Muehling: A Gregory S. Waldrop, faar’08, will History of Art, Yale University tion among the Soprintendenza Portrait by Don Freeman, was pub- become an assistant professor of art In Search of the “Eastern” Image: Sacred Painting in Archeologica di Pompei, the King’s lished by Rizzoli in November 2008. history at Fordham University in the Eighth and Ninth Century Rome Visualisation Lab of King’s College, fall of 2009. Presorted Non-Profit Society of Fellows U.S. Postage PAID New York, New York Permit N° 7131

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Janus, by Paul Davis, faar’98

On the front cover: Large Baths, Hadrian’s Villa, by Stephen Harby, faar’00

Below: AAR garden, ca. spring 1980 Photo: James Bodnar